The spell was broken. The world so long lying perdu had risen from its depths up to the broad light of day, and some instinct must have revealed to the young wife all the treasures that world held for her, for she laid her head upon her husband's breast, yielding herself up to him in fullest trust and confidence, as he bent over her whispering,

"My wife! my treasure!"

Through the open window came a breezy rustling greeting from the green wooded heights up yonder. Those forest-voices must have their say and mingle their whispers in the new-found bliss. Had they not helped to create it? Long ago they had understood, these two, before the two had learnt to understand themselves, at a time when they stood face to face in haughty contest, and spoke the word of separation in the very moment when their hearts were meeting.

But the contention and pride of the children of men avail but little when, with their loves and hopes, they come within the magic circle traced by the spirit of the mountains, as, amid the surging mists, he travels through his dominions in that first early hour of spring--and that which meets then, will cleave together for evermore!

CHAPTER XXIV.

The day which had begun so stormily for the Berkow colony ended in comparative quiet, such as could hardly have been looked for after the scenes of the morning. Any one unacquainted with the situation might have taken the calm, which towards evening fell upon the works and their neighbourhood, for the most peaceful repose. But it was only a truce, and, after this pause of a moment, the storm would break forth again with redoubled fury.

In the Manager's dwelling there reigned a brooding, oppressive silence, covering so much that was disastrous. The old man sat dumb in his arm-chair by the stove. Martha went about the room, making work for herself and casting an occasional glance at Ulric, who, with folded arms, paced gloomily and silently up and down the little s.p.a.ce. No one spoke to him, and he spoke to no one.

The old confidential footing, which, owing to the young Deputy's unmanageable conduct, had, it is true, often enough led to violent quarrels, but as often to reconciliation afterwards, had long ago ceased. Ulric ruled at home as absolutely as he ruled abroad among his partisans; even his father ventured no longer to oppose him, but, here as there, he governed only through fear. There was no talk now of love or confidence.

The silence had lasted long, and would probably have lasted longer if Lawrence had not come in. Martha, looking through the window, saw him approach and went to open the door for him.

The relations between these young engaged people seemed strangely cold.

In spite of that day's grave work, which had little in common with tender pa.s.sages, the girl's welcome might have been warmer; perhaps at so troubled a moment it ought to have been warmer, or so the young miner seemed to feel, for he looked hurt, and broke off in the middle of his cordial little speech. Martha did not notice it, however, and he turned hastily from her towards Ulric.

"Well?" asked the latter, pausing in his walk.

Lawrence shrugged his shoulders.

"Just as I told you. To-morrow four hundred of them will report themselves for work, and as many more are hesitating and balancing what to do. You are hardly sure of half now."

This time Ulric did not exclaim violently as was his custom on such occasions. The savage irritation he had shown in the morning about the desertion of a comparatively small number of his followers contrasted oddly with his present almost unnatural calm.

"Hardly half now," he repeated. "And how long will they hold out?"

Lawrence evaded an answer.

"All the younger men are with you. They have been on your side from the first, and they will stand by you still even if there should be trouble at the shafts again to-morrow. Ulric, will you really go such lengths as that?"

"He will go all lengths," said the Manager, standing up. "He will go on until they all drop off from him one by one and he remains quite alone.

I told you before, you will never succeed with your senseless demands and your senseless hatred. It was fitting enough towards the father; but in truth and conscience the son has not deserved it. What he offered you was sufficient; I ought to know after all, for I have worked in the mines in my time, and I can feel for my fellows as well as another.

"Most of them would have gladly accepted it too, but they were cried down and threatened, until not a man among them dared move a finger, just because Ulric had set his mind on getting more than was possible.

Now it has been going on for weeks, with all the misery and care and want, and it has all been in vain. There comes a day at last when the starving wife and children at home have to be thought of before everything, and that day we have reached now. You have brought us to it, Ulric, and n.o.body but you; now let there be an end of it." The old man had risen; as he spoke, he fixed on his son a look which had something of menace in it, but even this reproach, which at another time would have aroused Ulric to angry defiance, now failed to ruffle his gloomy composure.

"There is no arguing with you, father," he said coldly. "I have known that a long while. You are satisfied if you can eat your bit of dry bread in peace, and anything beyond that seems foolishness or a crime to you. I have staked everything on a throw. I thought to succeed, and I should have succeeded if that Berkow had not stood up all at once and shown us a front of iron. If we fail--well, Karl says, I am sure still of half the men, and with them I will let him see what it costs to get the better of us. He shall pay dearly enough for his victory."

The Manager looked at Lawrence, who was standing by with bowed head taking no part in the discussion, and then again at his son.

"Look to it first whether the half will remain true to you, if the master interferes in the matter again as he did this morning. That lost you the other half, Ulric. Do you think it has no effect upon them that he should behave as he has from the very first day you began to threaten him? Do you think they don't feel, all of them, that he is their match and yours too, and that he is able to hold them in hand himself, if ever it should chance that you cease to be their master?

The first set took to work again this morning; they would have done it three weeks ago if they had dared. Now that they have made a beginning, there will be no stopping them any more."

"You may be right, father," said Ulric in a low hollow voice, "there may be no stopping them now. I have built on them as on a rock, and they are but thin sand running through my fingers. Berkow has learnt how to draw the cowards to him with his fine speeches and cursed way of stepping in among them, as if there were no stones to fly at his head and no mallets to be used, if necessary, on the person of our respected lord and master. That is just why they dare not attack him. I know why he carried his head so high to-day all of a sudden, why he came into the midst of all the uproar, looking as if success and happiness could never fail him more, and I know too that they are coming back to him. I myself guided them to his arms this morning."

The last words were lost in the banging to of the door which he had opened while speaking, and no one present understood them. Ulric stepped out into the open air and threw himself down on a bench.

The unnatural calm, which to-day pervaded his whole being, was almost alarming in a man accustomed to give the reins to his wild pa.s.sionate nature. Whether the defection of his comrades had wounded him to the core, or whether some other feeling had been at work within him since the morning, it seemed that the proud certainty of victory, which he had shown even in those hours, was paralysed now, if not destroyed.

Past the little garden flowed the broad brook which, farther on in its course, served to turn the wheels now standing idle. It was a mischievous ill-regulated stream, this brook, it had nothing of the murmuring and silver-clear twinkling of its companions up in the hills, yet it too came from out of the mountain depths, close to where the shafts were situated. How often had it tried to draw harmless little children at play into its eddying course, so as, at least, to frighten and torment, though it dared not injure or kill, and so to revenge itself for having been made to lend its aid to man's machinery and labour.

The dark rapid flood looked weird in the last glimmer of the evening light, and still more uncanny was the brawling of its waters as it flowed by, hissing at times and babbling, full of scoff and of mischief, as though down below in the depths of the mountains it had learnt the tricks of the earth-gnome, how he weaves his toils round the men who are ever trying to drag his treasures from him, and how he has claimed as his due many a young warm life and buried it down in the regions of endless night.

There was nothing holy in its murmuring flow, and this was no holy hour in which its sound ascended to the young miner's ear as he sat there motionless, staring down before him as though harkening to some mysterious voice.

He had sat there for some time when he heard a step approaching, and directly afterwards Martha stood before him.

"What do you want?" asked Ulric, never turning his eyes from the stream.

"I wanted to see where you were staying all this while, Ulric," said she with repressed anxiety in her tone.

"Where I was staying? Your sweetheart is there within, keep your care for him. Let me be where I am."

"Karl has gone again," said Martha hastily, "and he knows well enough that it can do him no harm if I talk a bit with you."

Ulric turned round and looked at her. He seemed glad to tear himself from the thoughts which that brawling voice below had awakened in him.

"Listen, Martha; Karl puts up with more from you than any one else would stand. I would not suffer you to meet me in that manner. You should not have said 'yes,' if you had no heart for him."

The girl turned away almost angrily.

"He knows I have no heart for him. I told him so when we gave each other our word. He would have me consent. I can't alter it, at least not now; perhaps I shall learn to after the wedding."

"Perhaps!" said Ulric, with a sarcasm so deep and cutting as to seem inapplicable to the words he spoke. "Perhaps! So much is learnt after the wedding, with others at least, and why not with you?"

He looked down again at the dark flowing water, as if he could not tear himself away from it. There below was the same low plash and murmur, whispering to him only evil, evil thoughts.

Martha still stood a few paces off. That shyness and dread of him which, since the "accident," had been felt by all about him, had fettered her also. For weeks she had avoided every meeting, all contact with him, but to-day the old inclination had sprung up again strong within her, and had drawn her forcibly to the spot where he was. She was not deceived by that strange calm, she guessed what lay behind it.

"You cannot get over the desertion of the men?" she asked gently. "But half of them are with you still, and Karl will stand by you to the last minute."

Ulric smiled contemptuously.

"To-day there are still half, to-morrow there will be a quarter, and the day after---- Don't talk of it, Martha! As for Lawrence, he has never had more than half a heart for it. He has stood by me and not by the cause; by me, because I was his friend, and there will soon be an end of his friendship too. He cares far too much for you to have any very honest liking for me now."

The girl turned to him with a hasty gesture.

"Ulric!"

"Well, there is nothing in that to hurt your feelings. You would not have me when I asked you to be my wife. If you had, it would have been better in many ways."